Monday, December 02, 2013

Ouch

The woods around us contain many kinds of trees. Oak, birch, and pines are the most common, I think. Here and there are stands of acacia* as well, particularly along the banks of the streams that drain the vineyards. Often, in the rows of vines adjacent to a stand of trees, seedlings will sprout in between the vine trunks where the mowers, plows, or even the herbicides don't reach.

Thorns protect a young acacia from something or other, maybe from browsing deer.

The saplings can grow as high as the vines themselves before the growers pull them out. This is one of the thorns on a young acacia that's grown up higher than its neighboring grapes. I'm sure it will be yanked out as the vines are pruned this winter.

*From what I can find on the internet, what grows here is false acacia, called black locust (robinia pseudoacacia) in the U.S.

6 comments:

  1. Stunning ! Perfect shallow focus. Love the color and the diagonals.

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  2. Apparently, one must be careful when walking through the vines.

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  3. You are correct with your ID of 'acacia', which is unrelated to true acacia. It's just beginning to be recognised as an invasive alien in France, but I imagine that any attempt to get rid of it will produce howls from the apiarists.

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  4. What vicious thorns! The acacia wood is used for fence posts - when it dries out it goes rock-hard. It will last as long as chestnut. The golden form, which is a beautiful tree, doesn't seem to seed so much. P.

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  5. I have always wondered why in its native land - including Virginia - the flowers of the black locust don't smell as much and as sweet as they do in France. Climate? Soil?

    There used to be an enormous, and I guess very old Robinier on the left side of the façade of the École militaire in Paris. It was not very tall, but its girth was amazing. Now it's gone, but I always wondered if it was planted by Jean Robin, jardinier du roi, himself. The tree was named after him.

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  6. Locust is the best wood that we cut for heating. The trees don't live long but the wood is dense and hard, as Tim says. Younger trees mean narrower girth, so no need to split for firewood

    Chm, when the locust trees bloom here, which it seems to do at a different time every year, whole hillsides are white.

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